


the flesh, the juice, the pith, the pips, the peel

by mockturtletale



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, First Time, Found Family, M/M, POV Multiple, Reverance, Team Dynamics, Team Spirit, emotional needs, respect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-26
Updated: 2013-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 08:14:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1850914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mockturtletale/pseuds/mockturtletale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Blackhawks don't know Marcus well enough yet to be familiar with him and what he needs, and the Blackhawks never ever count on luck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the flesh, the juice, the pith, the pips, the peel

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the darling earth_is_a_star, as per her request on the home_ice feedback drive.
> 
> It's been well established that I'm utterly terrible at sticking to word count limits, right?
> 
> Thanks as always to Danielle for being the best beta. ♥
> 
> Title from a poem by Tony Harrison.

The Chicago Blackhawks have a much different sense of ‘team’ than most.

It’s not an effort, it’s not a stretch. It’s the simple matter of easy reach. It’s looking at the guys around you and knowing that they’re right there in a way that goes beyond knowledge to become _habit_. Reaching to touch without thinking; with your hands, with your words, with what you say inside the locker room and out loud into microphones. It’s a trust and love that is yelled loudly and reassuringly, furiously and with insistence. It’s in every pass they make, every shot on goal they take, and they don’t have to pile up against the glass during goal cellys to make it known, but nobody on this team ever turns down a hug that can double up as a chance to celebrate their friendship and the spoils of its force.

The Blackhawks don’t play the way they play because their success makes them confident. The Blackhawks _slay_ because their belief in one another gives them the confidence to achieve the kind of success they know they’re capable of and deserve.

Theirs is a unique brand of teamwork that stays unwaveringly bright in the locker room and for everyone who wears the Indian head, so changes to the roster are simple additions to the feeling they share with Rockford, a transition from one kind of potential and glory to another; a purely _Blackhawks_ energy that is present in both places, encouraged in and given freely to every player it ever applies to always, a constant. Line-up changes are only a pause. It’s never forever, and it’s not a bad thing in the long run.They’ll be back, and they’ll be welcomed.

And Marcus is welcomed with open arms when he’s called in, even though he has to come all the way from Djurgårdens.

It’s his first season in the NHL and he comes into it later than late in the day, dropped right into the fray with territory to defend and ground to make up, already.

Marcus is a Blackhawk, and the rest of them know to expect great, great things from him. They also know to wait, and to give him the time that he needs - the time that they each needed and received in turn. There’s pressure on him for sure, but support abounds around him, and he’ll cope because they’ll help him, they’ll give him what he needs to be able to do his best to be what they need in return.

No one is expecting any miracles.

And yet, what they get doesn’t end up being too far off.

Because Marcus steps in, and Marcus steps up. He’s fiercely talented, and he’s unwaveringly composed. He’s small and he’s quiet and every minuscule mistake he makes is corrected; over-corrected to such an extent that he comes to do what he first intended to do better than he could have if he’d just done it that way instead.

It’s like Marcus skips right over ever being a rookie, and makes himself at home at the very heart of the team as soon as he sees it; honing in on a home for himself that these guys generally take a season or two to see and make for because Marcus doesn't just see it, he understands it.

For Marcus Kruger there is no hesitant hovering on the outskirts of this team’s bond. He comes in, and he goes deep.

He goes quickly, and he goes quietly, and he goes without pause.

From the moment Marcus steps into his locker room, he’s in over his head, because that’s where he works best - with no time or space or opportunity for distraction. 

Marcus takes the help that's offered to him, the kind that's there for every single Blackhawk, new and old.

But there are other kinds of help that Marcus needs, and they're the kinds of help that he doesn't know how to ask for, sometimes doesn't even know how to recognize in himself. Back home Marcus has friends and family and other teammates, other hockey players, other athletes to stumble - guided by luck and familiarity, subconscious intuition – upon the right things to say and do, the very thing Marcus had been looking for.

In Chicago, Marcus slips into position seamlessly, like he's been there for years, like he's been there all along.

The Blackhawks don't know Marcus well enough yet to be familiar with him and what he needs, and the Blackhawks never ever count on luck.

 

____

 

i

 

Patrick wishes he could say that finding one of his teammates asleep in the hallway of the hotel they're staying in is the weirdest thing that's ever happened to him on the road, but it's not even close. Patrick’s life is much too strange and tragic for such simple, reasonable oddities. 

The fact that it's Kruger who he nearly trips over, sitting with his back against what is probably his own room’s door, slumped over and snoring softly is, however, definitely a surprise.

Marcus will get in on their pranks and shenanigans when he's encouraged to, but he's never really right there in the mess of their time wasting. For a second, Patrick wonders if maybe Marcus is the victim here, if someone maybe locked him out of his room. But that doesn't make sense either, because maybe Marcus rocks the quiet, sensitive, Swedish Model Mafia vibe really really well, but he's not exactly shy. Patrick has seen him give some truly brutal nipple cripples when driven to. Marcus would be quietly, mercilessly raising hell if this was some kind of prank.

And so, reasonably assured that something other than common teammate decency is amiss here, Patrick bends down and gently shakes his shoulder until Marcus lifts his head, blinking slowly and squinting in the bright lights of the corridor.

“Hey, hey Krugs. Is ... is this your room? Why are you sleeping out here?”

“Yeah, I ... yeah,” Marcus’ jaw cracks around a yawn and he has to push his hair back out of his face. “Sorry, spider. There's a uh – a big big spider on the ceiling over my bed, couldn't get it.”

Patrick doesn't know whether he's apologizing for basically yawning in Patrick's face, or for being a giant baby, but neither is necessary. He holds a hand out and helps Marcus up off the floor, and then he reaches for the keycard that falls out of Marcus' pocket on the way up, scooping it up off the floor without asking.

“Why didn't you come find someone? It's not even late, you know the rest of us are awake, man.”

The disapproving look Patrick throws him over his shoulder as he opens the door is for the fact that Marcus thought sleeping in a corridor was a better option than asking for help, and Marcus better know that.

“I know, it's not. It's not that. Just ... spiders. It sounds stupid.”

There's a desk chair that Patrick can use, thank god, because he's even shorter than Marcus and his non fear of insects does nothing to help that part of the plan. The chair bounces when he lifts it up onto the bed, and he knows it's going to wobble when he steps up onto it, but he also knows Marcus is going to hold it steady for him. He shoots him a look when he does. A very pointed, approving 'see how this works?' look that makes Marcus smile and roll his eyes and then nod, finally.

It is a huge ass spider, and Patrick definitely doesn't love having to touch it, but the gross feeling of its too many legs scrambling for purchase inside the closed fist his hand makes around it is worth it when Marcus visibly slumps in relief.

“Fucking call someone next time, Krugs. And if anyone makes fun of you for the spider thing I'll totally ... get someone else to beat the shit out of them. Shawzy, maybe. I'm that serious.”

Marcus nods solemnly and pats Patrick's shoulder the way he does with all of them before they hit the ice – so lightly it's like he's just checking to make sure they’re there.

Patrick continues on his journey down the now empty corridor, and brings the spider along for the ride because Jonny's horrified shriek when he sees it is just as awesome as Patrick had suspected it would be.

 

____

 

ii

 

Everyone on the team gets ribbed for one thing way more than the vast body of other things they also get ribbed about. Jonny and Kaner have the whole _banging each other_ thing, Sharpy has the universal adoration of his face thing, Crow is going to be taken to task for his parade speech every single day until the next time they win the Cup and someone else gets wasted and says something ridiculous, and Andrew himself has a built in target in how small he is, how scrappy he's determined to be. Hence 'mutt.'

For Krugs, it's the politeness gene.

Sometimes guys try to argue it's a Swede thing, but it's really not. Stalberg is smooth as fuck, but he's also totally oblivious to any kind of social grace that's tailored to anything other than charming his way in or out of something, and that’s the city of Nashville’s problem to deal with now in any case. Hjalmarsson is barely fit to be let loose in public. Oduya is definitely big on his 'please' and 'thank you's, but in so sparing a way that it makes Andrew pretty sure he's secretly subliminally training the entire team to want his approval almost as much as they clamor for Tazer's.

Krugs is so polite it's _ridiculous_.

Like tonight he's been standing at the bar for five minutes, and in just that time while Andrew has been watching, he's let four people step in ahead of him to get served before he does. He smiles the entire time, and Andrew is offended on behalf of the Little Guys and their struggle, which is not being helped by Kruger over there single-handedly setting the movement back three inches by letting everyone push him around.

Eventually Andrew has had enough. Not even the incredulously enjoyable entertainment value of waiting it out and seeing how long this might go on for is enough to make up for the way Andrew's blood gets a little hotter with every person who lets Kruger let them push in front of him.

It takes Andrew about six seconds to work his way to Krugs' side, because sometimes his size is an advantage, and Andrew has always been good at pressing that advantage. He's also exceptionally and unapologetically skilled in the art of moving his body in ways that make people want to find room for him.

He jabs a finger into the part of Krugs' side that he knows will bruise easiest, and when Krugs gasps and looks around in surprise, but not murderous outrage, Andrew sighs and snaps his fingers in his face.

“Look, listen and learn, Kruger,” is all Andrew says before he takes a hold of Krugs by the hips and propels him forward, knowing enough about mass and tight spaces to spot the gaps and weak points, sidling the two of them in between and ahead of most of the people who got ahead of Kruger in the crush. He is weirdly proud of how Kruger lets him do this. Teammates should always be trusted blindly, and it’s a start that Krugs seems to realize this at least. 

They get to the bar in record time, and Andrew buys them both a drink, because every good boy deserves a treat, and he tells Kruger so.

Marcus follows Andrew back to his booth, even though he'd been at the Swedish table for most of the night before this, and when he slides in next to him he slaps him on the thigh. Hard, too. Andrew beams at him.

“I get that you're a nice polite boy who probably knits tiny slings for injured kittens in his spare time or whatever, but you've gotta be better at the assertiveness thing, Krugs. Be aggressive. Be, be aggressive.” Andrew throws in the accompanying cheerleader move, executed with absolute precision and expertise, even though he's sure the reference and skill go right over Kruger's head. “Like on the ice, you know? Just like that.”

“But we're not on the ice,” Marcus says, shrugging. “It's different.”

“It doesn't have to be, though. We're hockey players, Marcus. Kickass hockey players. Our whole lives are the ice. You don’t have to let yourself get pushed around anywhere. Ja feel?”

Marcus lifts an eyebrow at him, and then drains half his beer in one long swallow.

“Ja definitely feel,” he says, and Andrew chokes on his own beer.

Twenty minutes later Marcus makes for the bar again.

Twenty two minutes later, he's back with two more beers and a proud little smile on his face.

 

____

 

iii

 

Brandon will fight anyone. Brandon will fight _everyone_ , he doesn’t give a fuck. You touch his guys and your face is getting intimate with his fists, that’s just how it has to be, because that’s the way he rolls. 

But he can’t say he doesn’t experience differing levels of vehemence in his reactions to seeing his teammates get shoved around. 

If it’s a particularly vicious or malicious hit, Brandon isn’t going to the box until he sees blood. If it’s a hit on a guy who Brandon knows likes to take care of himself, he’ll give the other guy a little shove, a friendly reminder that Brandon is there and Brandon sees all, but otherwise he’ll leave it at that. When it’s a guy in Crow’s crease, making himself comfortable up on Brandon’s goalie, then shit is getting real. When someone _says_ something Brandon doesn’t like to Tazer, all it takes is a look from his captain or coach, and Brandon isn’t pulling his punches until he’s been tossed out of the game. 

Ultimately, Brandon has a job to do, and he takes great pleasure in doing it well. 

Which isn’t to say he hasn’t got blind spots. 

Like Kaner, who repeatedly has to tell Brandon to stop trying to fight battles he doesn’t ever want to be battles fought for him, because he’d rather be playing fucking hockey. Brandon respects that, but he has no time for guys who target the smallest and most talented players on a team. 

And that probably explains why Brandon loses it the way he does when they’re playing Minnesota and Rupp does his very best to take Kruger out of the game. They’re already trying to kill a penalty when Rupp trips Kruger, kicking one of his skates out from under him, and Kruger kills penalties like it’s his divine purpose, so he doesn’t even let go of his stick as he falls, landing on his face as a result. He only chips a tooth, which isn’t so bad, and he barely misses a shift, but Brandon comes close to smashing his own stick apart on the bench when he sees Rupp argue the call, like he’s got a leg to stand on here. 

After about six minutes of trying to catch Q’s eye, Brandon finally gets the nod, and maybe it’s delivered with an eye roll, but Brandon doesn’t give a fuck, nobody trips his guys and anybody who trips the little guys is going to eat ice. Anybody who trips guys like Marcus fucking Kruger already has a special place in hell reserved in their name, but Brandon has no qualms about making their time on earth as hellish as he can, while he can, _because_ he can. 

When Brandon makes his way back to the bench, crossing the ice from the penalty box with his knuckles still pulsing pleasantly, swollen and red with blood, from use, he reaches behind Hjammer to cuff Kruger gently across the back of the head. 

When Hjammer stands up and swings a leg over the boards to take his shift, Kruger shifts over into the space he’d vacated and knocks his stick against Bollig’s. 

“Over reacted. M’fine. Not a rookie, Bolly.” 

Brandon sighs and bites into his mouthguard. “Duh. But you’re … you’re Kruger.” 

Brandon knows exactly what that means, but he knows before he says it that Kruger probably won’t get it, not the way it’s meant. Because it’s not an insult. It’s really fucking far from an insult. Kruger does things that Brandon can only dream of being able to do, so when Brandon can help him out with things that he’s particularly gifted at, he will. He relishes being able to. That’s teamwork.

“I can fight my own fights,” Kruger insists, but one side of his smile is pinched up into something almost like a smirk, and Brandon can see a dimple, so he knows it’s all good. 

“Sure you can, bud. We just fight in different ways, right?” 

Kruger doesn’t shrug off the arm that Brandon throws around his shoulders, and the next time he’s out on the ice he ducks another hit from Rupp and immediately rolls into a lightning fast poke check that strips him of the puck. He fucking winks at Brandon once he’s passed his prize off to Smith, and Brandon is grinning the entire time he races up the ice to join the two of them. 

Brandon is still grinning when he catches Rupp’s eye across the dot, and when Kruger wins the puck and passes it back to him, it comes with a laugh. 

 

____

 

iv

 

It’s Elina’s idea, and if she wanted to invite anyone else over for dinner Niklas would try to bribe her out of it, but she wants to have Marcus over, and Marcus is good people. Niklas doesn’t know many people who aren’t good people, but Marcus is maybe the best kind. 

He shows up with wine and flowers and he’s wearing a button down shirt even though Niklas has not and will not change out of the sweats he wore to practice. It’s pretty obvious why Marcus is Elina’s favourite, and Niklas can’t even begin to fault her taste in hockey players, because it’s impeccable. Obviously. 

The three of them share a lovely meal, and even though they mostly speak Swedish when they’re home alone together, it’s nice to have someone else there to speak it too - another voice to hear home in. Marcus insists on helping with the dishes, and Niklas insists on not, and Elina kisses Marcus on the cheek and gives Niklas a dead arm. It’s a really great night, and for once Niklas doesn’t mind sharing the attention of his beautiful wife, doesn’t struggle to stay out of the automatic locker room mentality that he finds himself straying into around teammates, because Marcus never leads him there. He’s not just a teammate, he’s a friend, and around him Niklas is almost polite himself. 

Niklas hadn’t noticed anything off with Marcus when he’d arrived, all shy smiles as usual, but when he’s walking him out he claps Marcus bracingly on the shoulder, and can’t help but pick up on how Marcus slumps into it, leaning right into Niklas’ body, his spine curving between his shoulders and his hips. 

On a whim, Niklas pulls Marcus into a hug before they say goodbye, when normally he’d be giving whoever was over a noogie right around now, and something in Niklas sits up and takes notice when Marcus melts into it, eyes closed. 

“We should invite him over more often,” he tells Elina when he comes back inside, and she looks surprised that he’s the one making the suggestion, but she nods. 

“Cool. I’ll make stew next time.” 

 

____

 

v

 

Generally, Patrick is the one hissing at Jonny to be quiet when they’re reviewing game tape as a team. Jonny likes to make points as soon as they occur to him, but he’s taken to writing them down to go over with Patrick and Bicks or whoever else once the lights are back on and Patrick has given him permission to speak again, because he gets pissy when Jonny distracts him. 

Which is why Jonny all but flails off his seat when he feels a hand creep across his thigh while he’s trying really hard to focus on finding something Patrick did wrong last game to chirp him about. 

Patrick is right next to him like always, so it’s not like he’s confused about who the hand belongs to, but he’s downright shocked that this is happening here and now. 

“Quit it, Kaner,” he whispers out of the side of his mouth, slapping at the fingers that are curling down toward the inseam of his shorts, but Patrick only shushes him really, really loudly, making Q raise his eyebrows at Jonny like he’s the one causing a ruckus right now. Patrick is such a little shit, and Jonny hates how good he is at making people believe otherwise in an instant. 

“So hey,” Patrick whispers, his pinkie finger edging up under Jonny’s shorts, “You know how I’m totally your favourite and you’d do anything I asked you to do?” 

“What do you want?” Jonny hedges in reply after waiting a beat, because fucking duh, but he’s not about to admit it out loud if he doesn’t have to, if he can get away with distracting Kaner with the promise of compliance instead. 

“Next time you’re giving one of your captainly decrees to the mics, could you talk Krugs up a little bit? I’m not looking for sonnets or anything, but he’s in need, I think. Not that he’d say, or that it’s obvious, but I’ve got a feeling, you know? He needs some C-love.” 

Jonny looks pointedly between Kaner’s hopeful face and the hand he _still_ has in Jonny’s lap. Kaner laughs. 

“Ha! Not that kind of C-love, man. That’s all mine. He just needs like … a word hug.” 

Honestly, Jonny is more embarrassed for himself for knowing what Kaner means than he is embarrassed for Kaner’s word and life choices. He plucks Patrick’s hand from where it’s almost entirely up one leg of his shorts now, and holds it loosely in his own instead, because there’s a time and a place for that but it’s always the time and place for hand holding. 

“I can do that,” he says, “But you know you’ll owe me, right?” 

Patrick’s fingers wind their way between Jonny’s, and the grin he gets then is so full of promise it’s obscene. Jonny flushes, and Patrick coos at him like he’s something adorable. 

“You can count on me, Captain.” 

 

_ 

 

Nobody is surprised to hear Jonny talk about how great Kruger is next time he has the opportunity to, because mostly all Jonny does is talk about how great his guys are, or skillfully turn comments on how great _he_ is into opportunities to talk someone else up. 

Marcus looks surprised when everyone in the locker room, those who belong there and those who don’t, swivel their heads to see his reaction to such glowing praise, though. 

He looks up in confusion, and that look stays put on his face as Jonny goes into further detail about composed Kruger is, how he’s someone this team and Jonny himself really depend on for everything, how his two-way game is probably the best on the entire roster, how Jonny would barely even consider it a power play if he was playing against Kruger’s kill unit. Marcus doesn’t seem to notice Patrick beaming at Jonny from his stall, practically sitting on his hands to keep from applauding what isn’t a performance at all, because everyone who knows Jonny knows he means every word he says. 

After the game, Jonny gets to be the one to pass the championship belt off to Marcus, in recognition of his one goal, two assists, three point performance tonight. 

“Thanks, Tazer,” Marcus says, but there’s something extra in it, something more. 

“All you, buddy,” Jonny tells him easily, thinking that getting to see the way Marcus handles the ludicrous plastic belt like it’s the Stanley Cup is almost as rewarding as what he can look forward to when he gets home. 

Kruger was due for a name drop anyway, so Kaner is the sucker here, and everyone is - as usual - a winner. 

 

____

 

+

 

Almost everything about playing hockey in Chicago is great. Marcus is so thankful to have been drafted by a team that can give him the kind of opportunities the Blackhawks offer up like it’s nothing. 

In Chicago everything is a fair fight and Marcus means to prove himself every single time he gets the chance to. 

He tries his best and ‘relieved’ doesn’t begin to describe how he feels whenever that comes to be enough or more than. 

Marcus never wants this team or this franchise to be able to look at his performance and find it lacking, and he has a lot of faith in his ability to see that standard through for all his days in Chicago, but there are still things he needs to work on, for them and for him. 

He wants to be better at the off ice stuff, at being a good teammate when that doesn’t mean a precise pass or well aimed sauce or back up on the dot, in a scuffle. 

It’s taking some time, but Marcus is working at it. He’s always working on letting his guys teach him how to be the guy he wants to be for them wherever they are and whatever they’re doing. It’s taking time, and it’s taking more effort than hockey ever has, but the reward is huge and Marcus is working hard to do it right, not fast or easily. 

Every time one of his teammates smiles at him in pride or claps him on the shoulder or tells him he’s done a good job when he isn’t wearing skates, when they’re not being televised or coached, Marcus keeps those lessons and takes them to heart, stores them up in memory to be touched back on rather than in practice to be rolled out and learned off in repetition. It’s a totally different kind of learning, and it’s a brand new kind of rewarding. 

But as great as his team are at helping Marcus out with something they don’t even know he needs their help with, there’s still one thing he needs that he isn’t getting and has no idea how to ask for. 

After a tough penalty kill or a particularly juicy apple, a timely goal or a big hit given or survived, Marcus gets the helmet taps and the fist bumps that he has earned, the post-celly tackles and post-game hugs that he craves. 

After Marcus learns a new life lesson he didn’t know he needed to learn, or trusts one of his teammates to lead him into some new knowledge of himself he didn’t know he was previously missing, sure Marcus has the memory of that progress, and it feels good. 

He needs a second kind of reassurance. A realer one for real life. Something big enough to leave him in no doubt that he has grown as a person, because of this team, in his downtime from honing his skills as a hockey player, for this team. 

For all he knows that this is something he needs and isn’t getting, Marcus has no idea what this ‘this’ might manifest as - he himself doesn’t know what he’s looking for, feels only its absence and the way he keens for it, aches for not having it. 

Time has never really been on Marcus’ side, but he’s got nothing else to trust with this one, and so he waits because he doesn’t know what else to do. Hopefully he’ll find what he needs in some form, recognize it somewhere, somehow, and then he can start to work up the courage to point to it and ask for it from someone he knows he can trust to provide. 

Until then, all Marcus can do is wait and need; hope and want. 

 

\- 

 

Marcus spends a lot of time alone, because he enjoys his peace and quiet and that has nothing to do with his teammates and the relative quality of their company. He just likes to be by himself, when their schedule affords him that luxury. 

This is not very often the case when they’re on the road, but Marcus is well used to that by now, so he’s not at all put out by the knock on his hotel room door, not surprised to find a smiling Oduya standing at it when he answers the knock. 

It’s not always a Swedish teammate who comes to find him and touch base, but when it is it’s usually Johnny. 

And just like usual, they fall immediately into the familiar patterns of spending hours in one another’s company enjoying the kind of companionable silence that they’re both comfortable in the knowledge _is_ enjoyed in each case. They’re introverts who play hockey and live their lives with a huge group of very loud, very emphatically vociferous teammates; friends. Family. This peace and quiet is well earned and luxuriantly revelled in and shared. 

So Marcus quite reasonably tenses up when after only an hour of mindlessly tracking the progress of some kind of nature documentary, Johnny switches the tv off and pulls his legs up from where they’d been stretched out next to Marcus’ on the bed; folds as he sits up straight until he’s sitting cross legged, one of his knees touching Marcus’ thigh. 

“You okay?” he asks Marcus, and the fact that he does so in English is the first hint of a direction to and through this conversation that Marcus gets. If it’s about home or family they stick to Swedish. Hockey, the here and now, and this kind of family are discussed in English unless English swear words alone are not enough. 

“Yes. I mean - yeah?” Marcus says, because he’s pretty sure he’s okay. It’s not like Johnny to ask a question that doesn’t need to be asked, but Marcus isn’t immediately aware of anything that’s the matter. “I am? Is there … is there something? Something wrong?” 

Johnny looks at him with dark, serious eyes, but then again Marcus can’t really think of a time when that hasn’t been how Johnny looks at him. Simply looks, maybe. 

“I don’t think so. But it’s not right, not exactly. Something is … something is missing, yes?” 

It doesn’t take Marcus long to think about that. It takes less time still to answer. 

“Maybe? But I don’t know what,” he says, honest with Johnny in a way a lot of people on this floor, in this building, have earned from Marcus, but don’t bring out in him as often or as easily. 

“And if I know? I think I do. I have an idea. Can I … will you let me try?” Johnny anchors his words with his hand around Marcus’ wrist, his touch loose but so very much _there_ , making all the inches of skin that Marcus’ t shirt leave uncovered feel so bare. It would take far less to evoke Marcus’ trust. It doesn’t take very much at all, for Johnny. 

“Yes. Yes - of course. Anything you want -- anything you think might -- whatever you want to try,” Marcus finally settles on, and his cycle of words has lured Johnny closer, has stopped to bring him sitting sideways next to Marcus, now, on his knees and looming over him a little bit. Just enough. 

Marcus has thought about what it might be like to kiss Johnny, in the idle way that you generally think about what it might be like to kiss someone you see so often, someone who is so good and kind and close to you; good to you. Marcus is thoughtful, and Marcus is precise, but he is not sweet the way Johnny is, he doesn’t find it nearly so easy to be so serious about taking care of the people he loves. He is determined, and he is awkward in the transition between the will to provide and the means of making that feel heartfelt, loving rather than vehement. 

And so the way Johnny reaches for Marcus makes him quick and eager to go, to give and to take and to have. 

Johnny makes Marcus feel bumbling in the best way. He makes him feel brittle and shaken and messier than Marcus has ever been in his entire life, in anything, because Johnny touches Marcus like he is a fragile thing that only he knows how to handle properly; carefully. With every ounce of his attention, every bit and piece of his intention loud in the eye contact he will not break, gentle in the fingers on Marcus’ face. 

Marcus wants to feel everything in how Johnny moves over him, he is drawn instantly into the knowledge that that proximity affords him. Close to him, Marcus feels worthy of how sure and steady Johnny is, how much he means to give Marcus this. 

It seems to take hours for Johnny to move between touching Marcus’ mouth with the pad of his thumb and then his lips, his tongue. It takes so long that Marcus loses patience and tries to skip ahead. He puts his hands on Johnny’s shoulders, once sure that he can, and tries to pull him down; pull him in. Johnny responds by covering one of Marcus’ hands with his own slightly larger, warm and familiar palm, but there is nothing familiar in how he touches Marcus like their bodies know one another this way; like this is muscle memory when it can’t possibly be. He doesn’t move any faster, doesn’t come as close as Marcus wants him immediately, and before today Marcus didn’t know this could ever happen, an hour ago he hadn’t thought about it in anything other than the most rudimentary of ways, but he is desperate for it now. Now he frowns into the kiss and pulls at Johnny’s t shirt, makes a plaintive sound that even he hears as petulant. 

But still they go slow. Slow. So slow that it really is an hour later by the time Marcus has coaxed Johnny down over him on the bed, his weight keeping Marcus tethered, his mouth making Marcus fierce; impolite in a way he has never known himself to be. 

And yet when Marcus begs he is shushed. Softly. Smilingly. 

When Marcus demands he is refused. Apologetically. Kindly. 

“Trust me,” Johnny says, and Marcus huffs, because that’s ridiculous. He does. He has and he will, thank you Johnny Oduya. 

Eventually, glacially slowly, Johnny gets Marcus shirtless, pressed to his bed wearing nothing but his boxers and Johnny’s body; still fully dressed, still relentlessly careful and measured, steady and thorough with every time he touches Marcus, every way he kisses him. 

And then he takes his mouth to Marcus’ body, and Marcus can only beg with his hands and with the broken sounds he pieces together in the back of his throat, because words are beyond him. Anything he could say wouldn’t cover it, couldn’t measure up. 

“Good,” Johnny says, over and over again. Before he presses his mouth to Marcus’ bicep, the coarse scratch of his stubble making Marcus shiver. After he rubs his lips, open and wet, across the rise of Marcus’ hipbone. “You’re so good,” he says with his face between Marcus’ thighs, without purpose, his cheekbone dragged down the thick curve of muscle that leads to Marcus’ knee, and he says it like that word means something else to him, because to Marcus it has only ever meant ‘enough’ and to hear Johnny say it, it is more. He is more. And much more. 

“Good,” Johnny insists, kissing the word slowly and thoroughly into Marcus’ mouth until all he can hear is the quiet, wet meet of their tongues, the whisper of Johnny’s stubble against what little Marcus has. Until all he can _feel_ is that word, over and over and over again, losing no weight for its repetition, heavy where it lights up his skin, makes him burn bright with some brand new kind of pride. 

They never make it to all the way naked, and Marcus can’t bring himself to gripe when his boxers get dragged down below his knees, when Johnny gets his mouth around him and makes Marcus forget that he needs to breathe, forget that he ever knew how. Next time he’ll want more, and he’ll think long and hard about next time until it happens, if he gets to have it happen, but for now he is more than happy with the way Johnny lets him reach for him, lets him push his hands up under his shirt and down into his sweatpants until Marcus gets to know what it feels like when Johnny comes in his hand, his hips pressed hard to Marcus’, almost pinning his wrist in place like it doesn’t matter to him how Marcus touches him once he does. There is nothing more that Marcus can ask for tonight, when he has watched Johnny’s forehead crease up in something like pained pleasure, his mouth slack and open and pink and wet because Marcus did that, because Marcus has apparently earned this somehow. 

“Okay?” Johnny asks, much later, when Marcus has his head pillowed on Johnny’s arm and Johnny has his hand in Marcus’ hair where it’s longer in the front, fingers combing through it and brushing it back out of Marcus’ face. 

“Good,” Marcus says, and he wonders if it sounds as different to Johnny then as it does to Marcus, now. 

 

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**Author's Note:**

> Not true, not profiting.


End file.
